Imagine tuning in to one of those Top if the Pops 2 specials which seem to take up much of BBC4’s airtime just now, one that focuses on 1980s glam pop, to watch the likes of, say, Wham!, Bros, or Erasure. You thought those days had gone, but they haven’t.
Keeping the flame alive is The Lovers of Valdaro, a duo from central Sweden (Adam Warhester and Erik Gabriel). They are new to NMR but I’ve encountered them previously, in 2018/19, when they took part in Melodifestivalen, the live TV show which selects the Swedish Eurovision entry, and got close to winning it. They are also producers and managers of other bands.
Historically, ‘The Lovers of Valdaro’ is a pair of human skeletons approximately 6,000 years old and discovered by archaeologists at a Neolithic tomb in Italy, in 2007. They were interred facing, and with arms around each other, in a way reminiscent of a lovers’ embrace.
It is a strongly evocative name to choose but their music is appropriately vivid, powerful and well produced with two well-matched voices. Gabriel in particular has a lyrical vocal, not quite androgynous, where you can’t quite tell if the singer is male or female.
A solid disco beat pervades most of their songs and that’s where they are going to be played, whether the discos are in Venice, Valencia or Västerås.
Oh, and they have a very visual stage show.
They’ve set out to produce "euphoric, melancholic and electronic" music, hence the title of the last song of theirs that I reviewed and ‘EME’ is something they’d like to develop, acronym and all, as a new ‘genre’.
They say the hope the song “brings joy to the end of this crazy year.” Hallelujah to that. 2020 ranks right down there with 1348, 1914 and 1939. And for that reason alone I suspect that we are in line for a return of this particular genre next year. I wouldn’t be surprised to see The Lovers of Valdaro at the forefront of it; and not only in Sweden.
Parting shot. They say, “We are back and will release new music 2021. Unfortunately no Eurovision 2021, hopefully 2022. :)”